Death Penalty: For The Avoidance of Doubt

No.

Ever.

However ... what it does raise is an interesting discussion regarding indirect democracy.

As I often ask my A Level students; if democracy is a good thing, what happens when MPs and the public collide on an issue such as - the death penalty? A few years ago a very bright young student called it "pick 'n mix democracy"; the public get to choose which issues it ought to have primacy over (death penalty, Europe, single currency, immigration to name a few) and which issues it delegates to parliament (everything else you don't find on the letters page of the Daily Mail, he quipped.) But we don't have a "pick 'n' mix democracy", we just have a parliamentary democracy, I said.

Ah, my padawan learner replied, and there-in lies the issue. Under "pick 'n' mix democracy" the pubic get the choose what they decide about, under "parliamentary democracy" the MPs do. I was reminded of this conversation when the AV Referendum was announced - the classic example. We, the people, don't get to decide on the death penalty (which a lot of people care about about) but do get to decide on AV (which very very very few people care about).

Discuss.

(Oh, and I say this as somebody absolutely and totally opposed - to both the death penalty and AV).

Best Post Ever (and possibly the best idea for a new voting system too!)

Amazingly good from the ever brilliant politicalbetting.com:

Here’s a suggestion for a fairer voting system. Everyone gets 6 votes. They can either split them 3-2-1 for their favoured parties, 2-2-2 if they’re not too bothered, 4-2-0 or even 6-0-0 if they feel really strongly. People who can’t add up to 6 are disenfranchised and the outcome reflects the strength of people’s feelings as well as its direction. It would be a bit like ’spending’ the green plastic charity tokens that you get in Waitrose. I would have voted 5-1 Tory-LibDem. (”Toss the bums a dime” as the great man sang.) by History Boy January 5th, 2011 at 20:21

In choosing between FPTP and AV, do I vote for the system that will stop STV?

As a politics teacher I am looking forward to the AV referendum next year (although personally I wouldn't vote to have one; too expensive at this time). I don't yet know which way I will vote, but I am currently leaning towards the "No" side and one thing in particular has been tipping my view.

I am concerned that the people advocating AV are actually those who want full blown PR, which I am definitely against - this article on the Coffee House blog says it all, that all those chosen to push AV actually don't support it but another system.

Why would I vote for a system which may lead, in time, to a system I am totally opposed to?

Norwich MP lets down democracy

Regular readers of this blog will know I'm an "on the fence" Conservative when it comes to the AV vote. But this really made me laugh.

Generally the only party to be in favour of AV are the LibDems (and even then they believe it to be a poor compromise). Their party has been engaged in a competition to find a great pro-AV poster (more here) and the above is one example of that work.

Pretty shocking eh? One MP won with as little as 29% of the vote ... who could be this betrayer of democracy?

Well, step forward ...

Norwich South
Simon Wright (LibDem) - 29%
Charles Clarke (Labour) - 29&
Antony Little (for it is he, Conservative) - 23%

I am aware that some people believe this result is the prime example of why we need AV, but there is a certain irony in the LibDems using their own MPs electoral records as a reason to change the system!

AV referendum to cost £100m

Either that figure is wrong (but as it came from Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg - I doubt it !!!) or I am voting NO just to spite whoever decided to run such an expensive waste of time just as the rest of country is bracing itself for cuts. Honestly - I know I'm a Conservative but is this really the best that the "new politics" can do?

AV if you want to ...

So the news is out (we think) that the referendum on changing the electoral system will be held on 5th May 2011; a little bit surprised that yet again a major issue has been put to the press before parliament.

Anyway, I'm not totally against a referendum but I also think that the voting system will never catch the enthusiasm of people in the way its supporters believe it will.

The Press will now spend a lot of time looking at the views of Tory MPs and the impact it will have on the coalition - for example, if AV loses will Nick and the LibDems pack up their toys and go home? Or, should Labour campaign against AV just to irritate the coalition?

If I were a Tory MP now there would certainly be 2 things that I would look at -

Firstly the date. I am not in favour of combining this with the local elections (and devolved authority elections) because of the potential for confusion and the in-built bias that the will exist in areas that are having elections. The Electoral Commission said it should be held on a totally different day and I agree - this is a major change and people ought to be clear what they are voting for. The worst thing would be for AV to win narrowly and then have voters claiming they were confused which undermines the result.

And secondly is the issue of a threshold; which comes into sharper focus when you consider how low the turnout might be (electoral reform ain't that sexy). Can you really justify this change on 50.01% of a, say, 30% turnout? I'm happy to discuss what the threshold ought to be, but there should be a clear measure of support for people before the change is made.

I hope some MPs take these ideas forward and the House of Commons gets a chance to vote on them - this isn't some LibDem obsession, nor a bargaining chip for the coalition, but the fundamentals of our democracy. This is important and should be taken seriously.

Ireland speaks for Europe again

The victory for the NO campaign in Ireland has a huge impact on EU politics; but interestingly the one thing that came through from all of the TV coverage and news reports that I have seen if the total lack of political education and the numbers of people who didn't understand what they were voting on. I'm pretty sure that's the excuse they'll use for holding another vote, in the hope that the Irish can (once again) be convinced to change their minds.

However in a funny way, once again Ireland has spoken for the whole of Europe - because whilst the bureaucracy and the spineless politicans seek to remove more and more powers from national legislatures and place them in a political superstructure that has an increasing democratic and legitimacy deficit, the people in these countries have their views and opinions ignored.

The betrayal by Labour and the LibDems over the Lisbon Treaty denied the people of Britain their say over the future; without knowing it, the Irish may just have given us our voices back.

In politics today, a cry for freedom has gone up.

LibDems make another U-turn on Lisbon

Tonight Nick Clegg's ridiculous stance on the Lisbon Treaty go a whole lot more ridiculous after his peers in the House of Lords did another u-turn and outright voted against a referendum.

So now we've had a manifesto committment to a public vote, abstention from his MPs and opposition from his peers.

So what do the LibDems think about the biggest European issue around at the moment? Nobody knows because you just can't pin them down. Still, at least Clegg has the 42 day fiasco to hide behind; but he can't do it forever.

Nick Clegg: Utterly Useless

If the Liberal Democrats had any powerful men-in-grey-suits they should be striding towards Mr Clegg's office tonight to give him the roasting of his political life. His populist position on the Lisbon Treaty has failed on all fronts and now he must face the public backlash and the political crisis within his own party. How has it come to this?

Well, for reasons best left to Mr Clegg he decided against sticking to his 2005 election committment and backing a public poll on the Lisbon Treaty. Quite why is beyond me, but never mind. He then thought up a huge wheeze - go for the big referendum on the "in-out" question; he'll look mildly euro-realistic, it'll be an elephant trap for the Tory right and gets him out of his Lisbon hole. One problem - it was a rubbish plan.

Immediately people like me, who want Britain to say in Europe but don't see the need for a constitution/treaty would be disenfranchised. It's like saying if you won't play football then you won't play any ball game at all. Europe-with-Lisbon or no Europe at all. Actually, Mr Clegg, I want to be in Europe but without Lisbon. I want to play Rugby (if you follow my point).

Now Mr Clegg could have hidden behind political obscurity and hope nobody noticed this blunder, but then a dozen or so of his parliamentary party promised their electorate they'd vote for a referendum and this blew the lid off the plan. Again, Nick Clegg could have dealt with this - but he insisted on having a massive LibDem frontbench (half his party count as such) and so consequently a few of them held important posts and so having them resign looks bad.

He might still have escapes, but then he went on Newsnight last night and totally humiliated himself; firstly by being savaged by Paxo and then saying that Brown was u-turning but, of course, he wasn't at all... And then he chose the most barking of views; that he should three line whip his MPs into abstaining! So he's prepared to force his own side to resign over not making up their mind!

And today three senior members of his party quit and, from what I hear in Norwich, his party grassroots are in uproar. Not helped by the fact that 63 will be his magic number - the number of votes that the referendum was defeated by and also the number of MPs in his party.

So, Nick Clegg is utterly humiliated in a political crisis entirely of his own making. He could have avoided this at several points and didn't.

This issue is no longer about Europe, it's about Clegg's judgement. He should go home, learn the lessons, make up with his own party ... then start working on his reshuffle. Because I'm pretty sure a few LibDem MPs will be going to home to think about their future under Clegg.

QT: LibDem Laws squirming on EU Treaty

The LibDem policy on the EU Treaty - that is, to demand a referendum on Britain's future in the EU - which has been through the mill by bloggers this week is totally falling apart on QT.

The question no LibDem will answer is this; what happens if you are pro-EU and anti-Treaty?

Let the people decide!

UPDATE: Letwin winning the battle; audience joining in on the Tory side. Laws struggling without support. Why on earth has Clegg allowed his party, and some of his best spokesmen, get mullered on this subject?

UPDATE 2: Daily Mail woman says that Laws has thrown a Queenie strop: "if you won't give us our treaty, we'll tear the whole thing up!" Good on her! Exactly the point. This isn't about the whole EU Question, its about the Treaty!!! And it's about Labour and the LibDems breaking a promise.

Sir Ming sets a new low for a political leader

Ming Campbell's call for a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU was clearly designed to be a political masterstroke, so how did it go so wrong?

Sir Ming has previously ruled out a vote on the EU Constitution despite promising one just 2 years earlier. He then suffered ridicule from the press and, more damagingly, his own side via the blogosphere. Then days later, Sir Ming aimed to trumpt his critics by calling for a vote on the whole question of Britain's EU membership. Instead of declaring this a brilliant act of democracy, the collective political wisdom of the nation stumbled backwards, stratched its head and said "what?!?"

The LibDems don't have a problem with Britain's membership of the EU - why call a referendum and then campaign for a "yes" vote? Doesn't this just give fuel to the UKIPers around the place?

But the biggest problem is this. I would probably (though not certainly) vote to saty in the EU but to reject the constitution. So what would I do in the LibDem referendum? If I voted "yes" it would seem as if I were backing the constitution, but if I voted "no" it would say I wanted to pull out of the EU.

This policy is so muddled, and so stupid, that it failed to achieve any of his objectives and just reinforced how shaky his leadership really is. This was badly thought through knee-jerk reaction - the kind we in the Tories were used to seeing under IDS. It looked good for five and a half seconds and then the reality of this latest rushed-policy sinks in.

Campbell, and by extension the LibDems, now have no credibility on this at all. I know some LibDems are tearing up their membership cards, others are openly calling on him to resign. If their parliamentary party could be ruthless with Kennedy, why aren't they showing more guts when it comes to useless old buffer Sir Ming?

Does Gibson support a referendum on Unitary?

In trying to explain away the confusion over his stance on the Norwich Unitary bid in the Evening News, Dr Gibson concludes by saying that “I await to see if a referendum is called.”

As it was the Conservatives who first put down a motion to call a public vote on Unitary, opposed by Labour and the LibDems, I welcome his tacit support for a referendum. However, I might have thought that one of our City MPs might be a bit more up to date because the government has specifically ruled out a vote on the issue. In the same way that Gordon Brown refuses the people of the UK a vote on the proposed EU Constitution, his government refuses us a vote on how we should be governed locally.

The refusal of the Labour Government to allow local people a say before their local Council is considered for abolition is a denial of democracy. On the 5th July, the Conservatives in the House of Lords put down an amendment to require a binding referendum before any new Unitary Councils are created. The Government said, “where a democratically elected Council takes a decision it should be validated in the normal way through a local election, the most significant referendum of all. In our representative democracy, it is surely up to a democratically elected Council to make a decision that the electorate can always contradict at the ballot box."

So local people are to be denied a voice again by Dr Gibson’s government, although I am sure that they will take the government’s advice and take the opportunity at any future general election to elect an MP who has consistently opposed Unitary for Norwich.